Paris With You
by rebecca-in-blue
Summary: "Did you write this yourself under a fake name, like McGoo?" Established Tiva: Tony and Ziva talk about movies, food, poetry, and - sorta - what happened in Paris.


_Summary_: Tony and Ziva talk about movies, food, poetry, and (sorta) what happened in Paris. There's no smut, drama, or even my usual angst here - just Tony and Ziva spending a quiet evening together and figuring things out. This story turned out _nothing_ like I had initially planned, and yet, I'm pleased with it. I hope you will be, too.

_Author's Note_: The movie Tony and Ziva watch in this story is the 1958 classic _Cat on a Hot Tin Roof_ (one of my favorites). The poem they read is "In Paris With You," by James Fenton. The idea for this story has been on the back burner of my brain ever since I first read that poem! And now, without further ado, here's...

**Paris With You**

As the credits roll, Tony stands up and stretches. Ziva stands up and takes their dishes into the kitchen. "I give it two thumbs up, Tony," she calls over her shoulder.

"I knew you would," Tony grins. He picks up their glasses and wipes away the rings that they left on Ziva's coffee table. Then he raises one of them to the TV screen in a toast. "Here's to you, Paul Newman. What a brilliant actor. Hey, didn't Burl Ives remind you of Gibbs in that role?"

Ziva pauses from loading their dishes into the dishwasher to look at him like he's crazy. "Burl Ives? Gibbs?"

"Oh, come on, don't tell me you didn't see it. The grumpy, gray-haired family patriarch?" He picks up the pizza box, which still smells of pepperoni and extra cheese, and tosses it in the trash, but then Ziva looks at him reproachfully, and he remembers and moves it to the bin under her kitchen sink, where she keeps cardboard and papers to take to the recycling center. "I mean, the whole movie, I kept expecting him to head-smack one of his kids."

Ziva laughs, then pauses thoughtfully and says, "If Burl Ives is supposed to be Gibbs... I think that makes me Elizabeth Taylor, yes?" She smiles at the idea. Elizabeth Taylor had played his daughter-in-law in the movie, but Burl Ives, the gruff old father, had loved her like his own, and she was the one who picked out his birthday present and made sure that her husband signed the card.

"Well, Liz Taylor was pretty damn hot... but you could give her a run for her money, Zi."

She looks over her shoulder at him and smiles so flirtatiously that he almost falls over. He tries to imagine Ziva in a tiny white slip, like the one Elizabeth Taylor wore, as he slides the DVD out of the player and pops it back into its case. It came from his movie collection, of course. Ziva doesn't have many movies at her apartment, which makes him wonder...

"Hey, Zi? What do you do when I'm not here? I mean, how do you spend your evenings when I don't come over with pizza and a movie?"

"I sit next to my phone, holding my breath and hoping you will call, Tony," Ziva answers drily, trying to make a joke out of it. Tony had half-expected that. That's what they still do with any topics that they're not comfortable talking about.

"No, really," he pushes. "Come on, I wanna know."

Ziva is quiet for a moment, contemplating her answer. "Well, it is... quieter without you here," she admits. "And we do not always get off work at a decent time, of course. But most evenings I usually go jogging, cook a nice dinner, read for a while, and go to bed early."

"That's _it_? Wow, that sounds boring. Maybe I should come over here more often."

Ziva glares at him. "For your information," she says, "last week, I made bell peppers stuffed with ground beef, onions, and garlic. It was delicious."

Tony can't remember the last time he ate a home-cooked meal, and Ziva's words make his mouth water. He knows that she likes to cook, and yet he always shows up at her apartment with pizza. Why didn't he ever ask her if she wanted something besides pizza? And she must get tired of it, so why didn't she ever say anything? He shakes his head and wonders at the two of them, at the little things that they still don't say to each other.

"And sometimes..." Ziva hesitates, then goes on. "Sometimes I go services at the temple. There is a reform one near here with a _minyan_ that meets on weekday evenings."

He almost asks her what a _minyan_ is, but instead he says softly, honestly, "I didn't know you did that." And he suddenly wonders what else he doesn't know about her. He hears himself blurt out, "What book are you reading right now?"

In response, Ziva jerks her head towards the end table next to the couch. Tony looks over and sees the corner of a book beneath the newspaper; he pulls it out. On the cover, the title _Good Poems for Hard Times_ is printed in big blue letters across a bright yellow background. Tony glances at Ziva questioningly. Lately he's found out some things that he didn't know about her, but this still doesn't seem like the sort of book that she would read.

Ziva notices his puzzled expression. "I know," she says, "I probably would not have bought it for myself, but it was a gift. Abby gave it to me after..." But her voice fades out, and she falls silent for so long that Tony is sure she isn't going to tell him after _what_. He's worried about how she might finish the sentence - he can think of a few periods that qualify as "hard times" for Ziva, none of which she enjoys talking about - but he hates wondering what else he doesn't know about her, this woman who's been his partner for six years.

So he prompts gently, half trying for a joke, "After hard times?"

"After I broke up with Ray."

"Oh," Tony says, a bit awkwardly. Then he wants to head-smack himself - is _oh_ the best response that he can come up with? "Well..." he stammers, not sure how to continue, but thankfully, Ziva cuts him off.

"Page ninety-five," she says, and something in her voice keeps Tony from asking what's on that page. He opens the book and flips through it; the title on that page catches his eye right away. _In Paris With You. _For a second, he just stares at the words on the page, and then, slowly, he reads the poem aloud. Each line brings back memories of their own trip to Paris.

Don't talk to me of love. I've had an earful  
And I get tearful when I've downed a drink or two.  
I'm one of your talking wounded.  
I'm a hostage. I'm maroonded.  
But I'm in Paris with you.

Yes, I'm angry at the way I've been bamboozled  
And resentful at the mess that I've been through.  
I admit I'm on the rebound  
And I don't care where are we bound.  
I'm in Paris with you.

Ziva had been resentful, even angry, when the agency first gave them the assignment. She had never said so, but Tony could tell. And he understood. To send the two of them to Paris, the most romantic city in the world, just when they were still raw from everything that they'd been through, and still healing from so much hurt - it did seem like some sort of cruel joke.

But Tony had made his mind up from the beginning that no matter what happened, he was going to make the best of this trip. He was going to enjoy it. After all, he was in Paris with Ziva. And even though they were only there for a short time, before they left the city, he had seen his pleasant mood start to rub off on her.

Do you mind if we do not go to the Louvre  
If we say sod off to sodding Notre Dame,  
If we skip the Champs Elysées  
And remain here in this sleazy  
Old hotel room  
Doing this and that  
To what and whom  
Learning who you are,  
Learning what I am.

Their hotel room certainly hadn't been sleazy. But it was nothing luxurious, either. There was no Juliet balcony, no mini-bar stocked full of alcohol, no TV with channels broadcasting classic American movies dubbed in French, no tall window with sheer curtains and a view of the Eiffel Tower, like Tony had briefly imagined when he and Ziva first got the Paris assignment. It was just a clean, decent little place in the fifth _arrondissement_ - but still, Tony had no reason for complaint. He was in Paris with Ziva.

Their room wasn't sleazy, but it did have only one bed. Ziva was the one who suggested that they share it. She had said it casually, as if it were no big deal, but that night, Tony felt her lie awake for a long time, her body tense and nervous beside his, before she finally relaxed enough to fall asleep. But he never commented on it - he knew that she wouldn't want to talk about it - and it was understood between them that they would tell Abby and McGee that one of them had slept on the nonexistent couch.

Don't talk to me of love. Let's talk of Paris,  
The little bit of Paris in our view.  
There's that crack across the ceiling  
And the hotel walls are peeling  
And I'm in Paris with you.

Don't talk to me of love. Let's talk of Paris.  
I'm in Paris with the slightest thing you do.  
I'm in Paris with your eyes, your mouth,  
I'm in Paris with... all points south.  
Am I embarrassing you?  
I'm in Paris with you.

Tony pulls at the collar of his shirt as he reads the last stanza of the poem. Ziva has moved closer to him on her couch, and the room seems to be getting hotter. Who knew that poetry could be so sexy? Finally he looks over the top of the book at her. She's sitting with her chin in her hand and her eyebrows raised, smiling that flirty smile and waiting to hear his reaction. Tony's mouth feels dry, and it makes him a second to find his words.

"What did you do, Zee-vah?" he asks slowly. "Did you send this guy a tell-all e-mail about our trip to Paris, or did you write this yourself under a pen name, like McGoo?"

"Maybe I did," Ziva teases back, a mischievous gleam in her dark eyes. "What do you think of it?"

"Well..." Tony rereads the poem, silently and more thoughtfully this time, and feels a sudden kinship with its narrator. The guy might've stayed in a sleazy hotel room with peeling walls, but he had no room to complain, either. He was in Paris with his girl, and just like Tony, he had enjoyed it.

And then, too, both of them have a hard time saying little things. "He can't say love," Tony blurts out, adding quickly, "The guy in the poem, I mean." He points to the first line. "See? _Don't talk to me of love_. He can't talk about love, so he says _Paris_ instead." His finger moves further down the page. "And look, he keeps repeating _I'm in Paris with you_ when what he really wants to say is _I'm in love with you_."

Ziva's eyes widen, and she stares at Tony almost as if she doesn't know him, which is close to how she feels. She's read this poem several times - it's her favorite one in the book - but she had never picked up on that. And she never, _ever_ would've expected Tony to be able to dissect a poem so well. Finally, she says, genuinely impressed, "I never took you for a poetry professor, Tony."

Tony flashes her his brightest grin. "Well, I'm a man of many talents. That's what makes me a Very Special Agent."

Ziva smiles and leans against him, her long legs tucked beneath her like a cat. "Perhaps next time you come over, you should bring your _Casablanca_. That is the movie with _We'll always have Paris_, yes?"

"Of course. 1942 classic, Bogie and Bergman." Tony pauses, thinking. _Casablanca_ is one of his favorite movies; he could talk for hours about it - how it was Bogie's first romantic lead, how the screenwriters barely kept ahead of filming - and yet, he doesn't jump at the opportunity. He never thought this day would come, but he feels tired of pizza and movies. He wants something more. "But Ziva, the next time I come over, can you act like I'm not here?"

Her smile slides off her face. "What?"

Tony laughs a little at her expression. "That didn't come out right. I mean, we should do the stuff you do when I'm not here. I wanna do it with you - help you cook dinner, go jogging. Or you could take me to temple with you. I wanna meet the _minyan_."

Ziva smirks. "Do you even know what a _minyan_ is, Tony?"

But he just grins again. "I'll find out when I meet them, won't I?"

Ziva is silent for a moment, then smiles and relents. "Perhaps we can do that, the next time you come over. And we could make pasta for dinner. I have Paul Newman's alfredo sauce."

"Really? You buy Newman's Own?" He sounds as impressed as she did when he dissected that poem a moment ago. "I didn't know you did that."

"Well, his brand is quite delicious - and it always makes me think of you. I know how much you love his movies."

Tony falls silent for a long moment, too stunned by this to answer right away. He and Ziva are a lot alike; neither of them has told the other _I love you_ yet, but he could swear that he just heard her say it, in so many words. Tony has kissed, wooed, wined and dined more than his share of beautiful women over the years, but when he thinks of Ziva finding ways to incorporate him into the mundane routines of her day - buying pasta sauce in the grocery store because it reminds her of Tony - somehow, that feels deeper, more meaningful than any romantic stunt he's ever pulled. Even the most mundane tasks of life suddenly seem romantic when he factors in Ziva. The idea of filing a tax return becomes exciting when he considers that maybe one day, maybe next year, he and Ziva will file jointly.

"Zi?" he finally asks, and she lifts her head from where it had been resting on his shoulder. When he sees the look in her eyes, he can't resist anymore, and the next thing he knows, he's holding her face between his hands and pressing his lips to her hair, her forehead, her cheeks. "I'm in Paris with you right now," he says breathlessly between his kisses. "I've always been in Paris with you. I'm in Paris with the slightest thing you do."

"I'm in Paris with you too, Tony," Ziva whispers back, before his lips finally find hers.

**FIN**

* * *

P.S. And to my Jewish readers, here's wishing you a belated _shanah tovah_! Consider this your new year's present. :)

V


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